Behind the Façades in France: What expats and the mainstream media (French and American alike) fail to notice (or fail to tell you) about French attitudes, principles, values, and official positions…

Monday, April 11, 2005

Europe's Asymmetric Journalism

Few places symbolize the moral bankruptcy and hypocrisy of the German left more clearly than Chechnya

writes Ray D as the Medienkritik blogger explains the concept of asymmetric journalism in Europe.

When US President George W. Bush visited Germany last February, tens of thousands of angry demonstrators turned out in Mainz and all across Germany to vent their outrage at the Iraq war and the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Now, less than two months later, Russian President Vladimir Putin is in Germany. And a whopping 30 protesters showed up to demonstrate the bloody Russian war and widespread human rights violations in Chechnya.

…The entire charade clearly demonstrates how the so-called German "peace movement" has changed little since the days of the Cold War when thousands protested in outrage over US involvement in Vietnam, but gave the Russians a free pass during the brutal Soviet war of occupation in Afghanistan. The movement's unending attempts to seize the moral high ground have been repeatedly undercut and exposed by the same sort of left-leaning Doppelmoral [double standards] time and again.

It would seem that Ray has a few questions for the practitioners of asymmetric journalism as well as for their readers and for the members of the society in which it thrives.

…If so many people around the world are so outraged by the military liberation of Iraqis from Saddam's Fascist reign of terror, why isn't there far more outrage at the horrific war of suppression going on in the Caucuses where oil is indeed an obvious factor behind the conflict?

Once again: Where are the hoards of angry anti-war protesters now that Vladimir Putin is in Germany? Why aren't they out waving rainbow PACE flags, beating drums, burning Putin effigies and pounding the pavement in mass protest by the thousands? Where are the shrill cries of "no blood for oil?" Where are the concerned friends of oppressed Muslims with their Palestinian flags? Where is the outrage at the violation of the Geneva Conventions and international human rights? Where are the mock funeral processions and empty coffins? Where are the candle-light vigils and the portraits of the dead and missing? Why has the German left sold out in the interest of selling trains and securing the rights to import oil and gas?